BlackBerry Review

BlackBerry is a Canadian comedy-drama about one of Canada’s most famous companies and shows the rise and fall of BlackBerry.

In 1996 Research in Motion (RIM) was a struggling tech company in Waterloo, Ontario. The company founders, Mike Lazaridis (Jay Baruchel) and Doug Fregin (Matt Johnson) pitch their revolutionary invention, the Pocket Link, to Jim Balsillie (Glenn Howerton) a senior manager at Sutherland-Schultz. Balsillie offers to buy a stake in RIM bringing his business knowledge and connections. Whilst Balsillie brings success to the company. he erodes Lazaridis’ principles over the years.

There has been a mini rise in corporate biopics. 2023 has already seen the releases of Air and Tetris and BlackBerry caps off an unofficial trilogy. Like Air, BlackBerry had a comedic edge as it showed two different companies going through pivotal moments in their history. However, there was a big difference between the story they told and how they told them.

BlackBerry bore a lot of similarities with two of Aaron Sorkin’s biopics about tech tycoons: The Social Network and Steve Jobs. The Social Network was about Mark Zuckerberg and the creation of Facebook and saw the deterioration of his relationship. Steve Jobs was about the famous co-founder of Apple and told its story over three time periods.

Like Steve Jobs, BlackBerry’s story was told over three different time periods. BlackBerry started in 1996, portraying the company’s early struggles yet was able to make a breakthrough when designing and pitching its internet-enabled phone. The 2003 act was about RIM needing to grow quickly to avoid a hostile takeover and become the dominant mobile phone company. The final act was set in 2007 showing the beginning of the end for the company as Apple launched the iPhone.

Steve Jobs was a brilliantly written, well-structured film so BlackBerry was following the right example. Steve Jobs was a unique film since each act was set just before Steve Jobs made a major presentation and they were told in real time. It was a fantastic example of screenwriting and direction. BlackBerry had a more traditional rise-and-fall narrative, but it was still able to put its own spin on a historical drama since it was told in three distinct sections. BlackBerry seems to directly reference Steve Jobs when it shows the passage of time through news footage.

Even within the film’s time-jumping narrative, there were story threads throughout the film. The focus of the film was on Lazaridis’ relationships with Fregin and Balsillie. Fregin and Balsillie were extreme opposites. Fregin wanted to make RIM a fun place to work, but wasn’t business savvy, whilst Balsillie brought professionalism to the company, but he was a cutthroat businessman who was willing to do anything to further his own interests. Lazaridis was in the middle of these two since he was a techy with high standards and wanted a professional, successful outfit. Lazaridis was the main character of the film since he was corrupted by Balsillie and his cohorts.

The clash between Fregin and Balsillie showed a broader clash between geek and corporate cultures. Both sides have different styles, interests, and approaches to work with Fregin wanting to foster a fun work environment that allows for creativity and high morale, whilst Balsillie brought in people to run the Research and Development Department like a dictator with strict time crunches. There needed to be a happy medium.

This change in culture at BlackBerry has a parallel to the other tech industries. Video Games and special effects have become notorious for corporate interference that pushes harsh deadlines on their staff and leads to inferior products being released.

BlackBerry opens with a statement saying it was a fictionalised account of events. It was a lot more honest than many other films that are based on or inspired by a true story. BlackBerry does take a lot of creative liberties to make its story work. Examples include Balsillie losing his job at Sutherland-Schultz in 1992 instead of 1996 and the reason he wasn’t allowed to buy an NHL team in real life was different from how it was portrayed in the movie.

BlackBerry was a genuinely funny film. Witty dialogue enhanced Fregin and Balsillie’s abrasive personalities. Howerton’s Balsillie was especially hilarious with his short fuse and came up with stinging comments when yelling. It was a bit odd that Jay Baruchel played the straight man given he’s appeared in many comedic films like Tropic Thunder, This Is The End, and the How to Train Your Dragon trilogy. As the film progressed it became more serious as RIM’s house of cards started to fall.

BlackBerry was an excellent film that was able to tell the rise-and-fall narrative in a fresh manor and be an entertaining biopic.